CESA2DifferentiationAcademy - 5 Principals of High Quality Instruction

Safe Learning Environment

Critical to high quality differentiation
Be welcoming, celebrating & respecting differences
Growth is focus
Celebrate successes
Fair, equitable
Important to have students collaborate
Teachers need to show/expose their mistakes and how they learn from them as well

High Quality Curriculum

Includes the big ideas as a foundation while recognizing need to understand specific vocabulary and skills
Knowledge, understandings & skills

On-going Assessment

Pre-assessment is essential to guiding instruction
It's not when, it's how you do/use the assessment
Constantly checking in with students to see how they are doing to adjust accordingly
Take into consideration student readiness, interest and learning profiles

Respectful Activities

Engaging and appropriately challenging for the student it is designed for
Kids aren't wanting to do different projects because theirs is equally engaging & challenging
All activities (maybe different) but should be focused on the same goal.
Focus is on assignment is tailored to student and in their zone of proximal development

Flexible Grouping

sometimes work individually, small groups, heterogeneous groups, boys, girls? etc.
helps students see themselves from different perspectives
Heterogeneous helps build confidence
avoid having higher students always be the tutor